Urine Battery Turns Pee Into Power

Urine Battery Turns Pee Into Power

Urine is one of a number of bodily fluids rich in ions—electrically charged atoms. Researchers in Singapore leveraged this fact to produce a credit card-size battery (bottom) powered by urine. The device produces about 1.5 volts, the same as a standard AA battery, and can last for 90 minutes.

Top photograph copyright Chris Collins/Corbis; bottom photograph courtesy Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology

John Roach
National Geographic News
August 18, 2005

Before you next flush the toilet, consider this: Scientists in Singapore have developed a battery powered by urine.

Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology created the credit card-size battery as a disposable power source for medical test kits.

Diagnostic test kits commonly analyze the chemical composition of a person’s urine to detect a malady. Ki Bang Lee and his colleagues realized that the substance being tested—urine—could also power the test.

“In order to address this problem, we have designed a disposable battery on a chip, which is activated by biofluids such as urine,” Lee wrote in an e-mail to National Geographic News.

Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, said the technology is a welcome innovation in a time of rising energy prices.

“All jokes [about] urine aside, what is needed are low-cost batteries. …” he said. “The other neat thing about this is the fact that it’s basically a biodegradable battery.”

Geek.Com users are having a proverbial field day about the notorious “urine power” study.

18 August, 2005 |

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